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“My daughter painted my nails this color, girl. I didn't have time to take it off, so I just found this lipstick and slapped it on so it would match. Is it too much? Do I look like a hooker?” She laughed and didn’t give me time to answer. “Well ya’ll,” she said into the mirror, “I’m not a housewife tonight!” Kay gave her reflection a kiss before we opened the door to the bathroom, walked through the hairspray cloud, and went down the hallway to the kitchen. Doug and Tim finished their cleaning duties and held prepared drinks for us as we pranced toward them.

“Ta da!” Kay shouted as the boys whistled. “What were ya’ll talkin’ about while we were putting our faces on?” She pulled out a bar stool and sat on it. I followed suit.

“That we are the luckiest men on this earth with hot wives,” Tim said as he handed drinks out to each of us.

We were swooned by this gesture of our suave men. As we took our first sip, Doug chimed in, “And how you are all getting fucked in the butt tonight.” The guys burst into red-faced laughter as they leaned on each other for support and slapped the countertop. Kay and I heaved forward in an attempt to keep the fluid from bursting out of our mouths, but our attempts were futile.

“You assholes!” I wiped mixed drink from my nose and scurried to the sink. “I almost fucking choked!” I hovered over the sink, letting the booze drip from my nose as I spit and eventually tried to clean off my face without smearing my makeup.

Tim switched into the kind of laughter that some people refer to as “the silent tick.” Apparently, it’s when something is so funny it steals all sound, yet they are able to tick and laugh with their mouths wide open. A tear couldn’t have made its way out of his eyes they were squeezed so tightly. Tim was frozen in this position as his face just deepened in its shade of red. From the quiet pressure of the silent tick, a moist clicking noise squeaked through every time he tried to breathe.

Doug’s laugh transformed into a high-pitched monotone techno song, producing a steady beat of shrill man noises until, in an effort to breathe, a deep snort interrupted the flow, which threw Tim into hysterics on the floor, silently ticking.

Kay and I scurried around the island, past Tim on the floor, and Doug who was wheezing. Our hands tried to catch the liquid still dripping from our noses. We stood at my kitchen sink, towels at our chins while the boys gave each other high-fives in a true male-bonding form.

There is something to be said for the innocence of youth. When a person gets older, things like this may get a chuckle at best, but these theatrics makes being twenty a viable reason to build a time machine.

After recomposing ourselves, the four of us had a wonderful night dancing and drinking. We tried to watch a movie after coming back home, but, if a wisecrack about anal sex sent us into hysterics, a movie was not the best up-tempo idea. The four of us got bored, and since drinks were low, the boys agreed to a beer run, which made me responsible for entertaining Kay. The first thing I grabbed was my photo album. We flipped through the pages, looking at photos of my life before marriage when Melanie, Annica, and Lynn demonstrated the universal lesbian sign in practically every shot. Kay complimented my appearance in each picture, even the random high school photos that fell out of the back of the book. She couldn’t stop telling me how pretty or hot I looked and how envious she was of me. She joked that, if she were gay, she would sleep with me and we laughed—although she seemed serious and it made me slightly uncomfortable.

When the photo album was out of pages, I turned to music and crouched by the stereo to flip through CDs I thought she would like. It definitely helped me to break eye contact, yet still be engaging. I played specific songs for her as she swayed in enjoyment. Her compliments continued as did her smiles and gentle touches.

I thought I was picking up faint signals of interest but ignored them all until Kay boldly said, “I’m totally serious. I’d let you fuck me. Hey, maybe we should go to my place. I have CDs you might like.”

I didn’t even have time to think about anything. When she opened the door of opportunity, I walked in it as fast as we walked through my shitty, dirt yard to her front door.

When we opened it, we were met with a beautiful blue glow from a huge terrarium that held a snake. We walked over to it as she excitedly explained the species and how terrible she felt for the mice when she had to feed it. She didn’t turn on any lights as she walked down the dark hallway into a bedroom. From the room she called to me, “Come back here! I didn’t show you our new bedroom set, did I?” I walked slowly as my eyes adjusted. She was sitting on the corner of the bed, smiling, as I approached the doorway.

“The light switch is behind you,” Kay said.

The bright light made both of us wince when I flipped the switch. She bounced and beamed, “It’s so wonderful! Come try it!”

I took two steps into the room and pressed on the mattress with my hands. “Sure is nice,” I agreed.

Kay stood up. “Sit. You have to sit on it.” She walked to the light switch and flipped it off as I sat on the corner of her new bed.

“Why did you turn the light off?” I asked her silhouette.

“I don’t know.” She stood staring at me with the blue illumination on one side of her face. I sat for a second and let a feeling swell inside that told me I should do something, but I chickened out. “We should probably go.” Kay didn’t move; she just stood in the doorway as I sat on the bed. To move through the awkward moment, I nervously stood up in the dark and moved my hand as if Vanna White were presenting a vowel. “Well, you lead the way.” My brain was swirling like it was trying to solve a riddle. What did this feeling want me to do, and why was it pressing to have it accomplished this instant? In slow motion Kay turned to face the blue light, so I stood to follow. My body and mind screamed in unison for me to make a move. I could almost hear the words as the connection from my head to my mouth wiggled my tongue to do it now or I would never do it. A slap is the worst that could happen, and, even then, I could blame it on the alcohol, so there was nothing to lose.

In an instant that seemed like a lifetime, I grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and pressed her against the wall for a passionate kiss. At first she uttered a surprised “Oh,” much like an actress in a classic film. Her body was rigid and a little scared. She then relaxed a little to return kisses when her mind wrapped around the idea. When she realized that this was turning her on, she moaned and wrapped her arms around me to pull me in for more. It was a brief two minutes of uninhibited passion before we paused to shake things off.

Her eyes squinted as she licked her lips and let her head roll away from me on the wall for support. What she was saying and what her body was telling me were two different things all together. “The boys should be back by now. We should go,” Kay whispered as she heaved upward and rolled her body against mine. She grabbed my breasts as she rolled her hips and leaned in for another kiss. She repeated telling me that we needed to leave between kisses and rubbing each other’s clit through the seams of our pants. I was the one who stepped away from her in an effort to actually leave the hallway. It took her a second to realize that I wasn’t coming back, so she slowly turned to walk toward the door without saying anything. When she reached it, she hesitated opening it. I kissed her once more, just to hear her moan again, and reminded her that maybe we should bring some CDs back since that was our cover story. We giggled.